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Saturday, June 30, 2012

Official data shows an alarming increase in killings. PHOTO: REUTERSISLAMABAD:

The government seems to be at a loss to explain the escalating sectarian strife in Balochistan, which has claimed more than 400 lives in more than 200 incidents of ethnic and sectarian violence in the past four years.

The decade-long insurgency recently turned into a battleground for politically motivated attacks on religious sects with banned outfit Lashkar-e-Jhangvi allegedly targeting the Shia and Hazara communities throughout the embattled province.

The provincial home department said in an official report last week that cross-border influence, among other factors, was fuelling the sectarian violence.

The official report which covers a period of four years states that over 400 Shias and Hazaras, who account for nearly a fifth of the country’s 170 million population lost their lives as a result of the aggression. Around 100 pilgrims have been killed in just the first half of the current year.

Another 450 people were injured in over 110 sectarian attacks from 2008 to 2011.

The increasing trend of violence is alarming. Over 120 members of the Shia and Hazara communities were gunned down last year while close to a 100 sustained injuries, compared to 81 fatalities and 200 casualties in 2010.

In 2009, 39 members of the Shia community were killed and 20 injured in over 30 incidents of ethnic violence, while only 15 were killed and 10 injured in 2008.

The police have arrested alleged terrorist Sher Dil, also known as Babu, for his reported ties with Lashkar-e-Jhangvi in a bid to curb the violence. Others who have been arrested include Hafiz Muhammad Usman alias Abbas, Dawood Badeeni, Jalil Ababkki and Shafiq Rind. However, some suspects such as Usman Saifullah and Ziaul Haq still remain at large.

Alleged terrorists Khalid Bungulzai and Majeed Langove are said to have been killed in police encounters and the government has constituted a high-level inquiry committee headed by the home minister of Balochistan to further probe the incident.

The provincial government has decided to refer the investigation of “sensitive cases” to the Crime Investigation Department and called for a review of the regulations pertaining to the movement of pilgrims under the Travel Agency Act, 1976.

The provincial home secretary also held meetings with the Iranian consul general. Both sides agreed to beef-up security arrangements from Quetta to Taftan and discussed possible arrangements for facilitating the movement of members of the Hazara community between Marriabad to Hazara Town and Hazar Ganji.

The gruesome incident in which a bus of Shia pilgrims was attacked in Quetta coupled with numerous others in Balochistan over the past few months is part of baleful conspiracy to divide the country vertically and horizontally.

More than dozen people, who were returning from Iran, were lost their lives while another 30 sustained severe injuries when their bus was attacked in the outskirts of provincial metropolis.

If we focus on the pattern of attacks, the incompetency of the provincial government and law enforcement agencies to protect the community becomes the foremost reason of the dreadful incident.

This community mainly targeted along the set routes that buses take when transporting pilgrims to and from Iran, the neighboring Shia-dominated country.

Although law enforcement agencies increased security along these routes, they will have to develop a proper setup to monitor and identify suspicious activities in the future.

The police escorts which accompany pilgrims in these journeys are adequate at all. Local politicians of the province have been provided extensive and expensive security arrangements, but why not proper security and protection is being given to Hazara community.

Rather making efforts to prevent already planned attacks at the eleventh hour, the more effective way to tackle the issue is chasing the militants and dismantling their infrastructure.

The anti-Shia militancy in the province has modified itself into a force having its own motivations, operational bases and centers of propaganda and misinformation.

The law enforcement agencies have identified the locations of seminaries involved in propagating anti-Shia views. They also found some bases of the Lahskar-e-Jhangvi (LeJ) who train militants and terrorists for such attacks.

Despite having information about the attacks and those behind them in the face of such a predictable pattern, the failure to prevent them has only intensified speculation that law enforcement agencies are deliberately not taking action against secretarial violence.

Such theories reflect mistrust among the stakeholders in the province, which is seen as being focused on cracking down against separatist forces.

The continued attacks on the Hazara community are increasingly becoming a massive abdication of responsibility on part of the state whatever it is thinking.

How many Hazarganji has this beleaguered nation been left out to witness? And for how long? Now for months together, the Hazara community in Balochistan has its head in the crusher of sectarian slaughter. Its pilgrims are massacred while travelling on buses and vans for pilgrimage. Its religious congregations are fatally attacked with terrorist bombs and blasts. Its community members are mowed down in targeted shootings. Its mayhem continues right inside and outside the metropolis of Quetta. And no end is anywhere in sight to its carnage as yet.

Then where are the enforcers of law? Have they lapsed into a swoon or a stupor? Why are they not doing something to stop this holocaust of this community? Why are they not nabbing the masterminds, financiers and perpetrators of this brutal slaughter? Surly, the shady characters wreaking this horrific bloodbath on the Shia community of Hazaras do not descend from the skies. They are very much present on the ground. They have their sleeper cells in the province and in the metropolis of Quetta. They plot their vile acts there. Their money bags sit there. Their handlers are ensconced there. Their slayers fatten in their own stables. Why then are not their lairs being sought out and they being smoked out? Where are the intelligence hounds of the provincial security apparatus? Haven't they been tasked to bust the hideouts of sectarian monsters and dismantle their terror networks? And why federal agencies are not going after these vile characters when terrorism, sectarian or otherwise, is no region specific but a countrywide vine, spreading all over the land in an interlinked manner. Terror groups are no longer monolith monstrosities, either. Quite perceptibly, terrorists of various hues and stripes have ganged up together, helping and assisting one another in their sinful criminality.

And even those wearing the masks of spurious religiosity have linked up with criminal gangs of the underworld. This is a very vicious combination that indeed has transformed the entire land veritably into a slaughterhouse. No place is immune from the wickedness of this vile terrorist-criminal axis. Every province, every region, every niche of the land is in the eye of the storm. Terrorists and criminals kill and maim wherever and whenever they want. And every time, they just go scot-free.

After every strike, the law enforcers are very prompt in telling the weight of the explosives used. But what they conveniently tell not unabashedly why had they failed so scornfully in preventing the use of these explosives. After all, they are not there to tell the explosives' weight. They are paid not to allow anyone to murder with those explosives. But no heads ever roll. No questions are even asked; no explanations demanded. It seems the top echelons have taken that so long as they are safe and secure, it hardly matters if the commoners are killed and maimed in terrorist assaults. No extraordinary concern is perceptible in their echelons even as the country has become a sprawling abattoir of terrorists and their criminal accomplices. It really is disconcertingly shocking that stray ideas and plans the top echelons had condescended to take up to beat out the terrorists are lying undone unattended for these top echelons' disinterest. Almost four years down the road, a contemplated nodal agency, national counter-terrorism authority, is nowhere near formation. The plan is lying stuck up some in the official labyrinths forgetfully. A proposed amendment to tighten up the anti-terrorism law is gathering dust in the Senate chamber for more than three years. For long, one is hearing of plugging up the holes in the evidence act but nothing has as yet come of it.

This disinterest of the top echelons is self-hurting. They must understand. Terrorists will not keep confined to killing and goring the commoners. They will get the top echelons too. Already, a few of them have come under their attack. But if these echelons keep up with their disinterest, it will not be Hazaras alone to suffer fatally at the terrorism monsters' hands. Their vile hands will reach up to higher throats more frequently. The state security apparatus perforce needs to get out of its hibernation and move out systematically, methodically and powerfully against the terrorist thugs before they pull down the fa�ade of the state structure with their thuggery.

Messages of hatred, through bombs and killings, continue to be delivered across the country with militants – motivated by different ideas and ‘inspired’ by different aims and ideologies – striking at will in various places, in various ways and aiming at different targets. Reports narrating the details of these attacks have become the norm, with their tales of death and injury. Now we read such a story again, once more from Quetta where a bus carrying Hazara pilgrims across the border from Iran on Thursday was attacked as it entered Hazar Ganj. Thirteen people were killed and 40 on board the bus were injured. The bomb that caused that havoc appears to have been planted in a car along the route. Like those before it, the attack was well-planned and expertly executed. The toll of the dead may rise given the gravity of some of the injuries suffered by the victims now lying in hospital. Clearly the motive was sectarian as it has always been in similar attacks in the past and the present. There was another incident of terrorist violence on that same day. In the Bara area of Khyber Agency, an army vehicle was attacked with a home-made explosive device killing eight soldiers of the Pakistan Army including a captain. Again it is not hard to know who was responsible or why the army personnel died. Many other similar attacks have taken place before.

What is difficult to know and understand in the former case is the ‘unchecked’ consistency with which a particular community is being targeted with the government and the law-enforcement agencies playing a role no better than that of a bystander. The pain and agony suffered by the Hazaras is immense. Living constantly under the fear of death, so many of them have been forced to abandon their work and education. Even if terror has become so much a part of life in many areas of this country, it still boggles the mind how a process of systematic elimination of the Hazaras in Balochistan by sectarian extremists belonging mostly to Lashkar-e-Jhangvi has gone on undeterred, with little apparently being done by those at the helm of affairs to protect the community that is being attacked and slaughtered and punish those who, it seems, would have nothing less than genocide as their aim. After the latest incident, words of condolence and directions for an enquiry have, once again, come from the prime minister and other officials, as they always do. Such condolences have started to sound obscene now. A government’s job is a bit more than just mourning along with the grieved as their neighbours do. And such enquiries, if they are indeed held, lead nowhere. Protests and demonstrations have been held and strikes observed after each such incident by parties representing the Hazaras and also other groups, and Quetta is seeing more of these after the latest carnage. Will these rallies, and slogans of protests raised by them, ever shake the government out of its criminal slumber and move the intelligence agencies into doing their job – that of identifying those planning this crime and tracking them down?

THE story is not new. But with each attack, the targeting of the Shia Hazara community becomes a more firmly entrenched feature of life in Balochistan today. Thursday’s bomb attack on a bus of pilgrims returning from Iran was only the latest in a string of incidents that have taken the lives of at least 60 Hazaras this year alone, including students and people from the community simply going about their daily business. Easily identifiable because of their physical features, neighbourhoods and the routes they take for routine pilgrimages, Balochistan’s Hazaras are now sitting ducks, victims of a relentless campaign that can only be compared to ethnic cleansing in its laser-like focus and its desire to kill as many members of the community as possible.

Given this focus and the pattern of attacks that has been established, the inability of the Balochistan government and paramilitary troops to protect the community can only be the result of extreme incompetence or a lack of commitment. Many of the attacks take place along the set routes that buses take when transporting pilgrims to and from Iran. Policing along these routes has reportedly been stepped up, but surely they can be monitored in a way that is better able to identify suspicious activity or prevent attackers from planting bombs. As for police escorts to accompany pilgrims, these have clearly not been adequate; if Balochistan’s politicians can be provided with extensive and expensive security arrangements, why is the same level of protection not being provided at least to Hazara pilgrims?

The more effective method, of course, would be to tackle this problem at its roots, going after the militants and dismantling their infrastructure rather than trying to prevent already planned attacks at the eleventh hour. Balochistan’s anti-Shia militancy has morphed into a force in its own right, with its own motivations, operational bases and centres of propaganda. For this, too, there are clues: the locations of madressahs propagating anti-Shia views and some of the bases of the Balochistan arm of the Lashkar-i-Jhangvi have been identified, and include the chief minister’s own base of Mastung. In the face of such a predictable pattern of attacks and available information about those behind them, the failure to prevent them has only fuelled speculation that Balochistan’s civilian and security establishments are deliberately not taking action against sectarian militancy. These theories reflect the lack of trust in the provincial set-up, which is seen as being focused on clamping down on separatists instead. Whatever the thinking among state actors, the continued targeting of the Hazaras is increasingly becoming a massive abdication of responsibility on their part.

Terming the incident barbaric and crucify, Imran Khan, the cricketer-turned-politician, has strongly condemned attack on a bus carrying Shia-pilgrims from Iran to Quetta which led to loss of 15 innocent lives.

In his view, the attack was part of a systematic wave of violent incident against Hazara community whose 60 people have been brutally killed during past six months.

He tweeted, “We condemn the terrorist attack on pilgrims’ bus in Quetta. Our prayers go out to all the families of the victims & for recovery of injured”.

The Chairman of the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) was of the opinion that there could be serious repercussions if dangerous trend of increasing frequency and intensity of violent attacks against Hazara Community is not reversed in the country.

“I condemn the rising tide of sectarian killings in Balochistan and the shameful failure of the government to assert its writ in the province”, he added.

Commenting on the law and order situation in Balochistan, Khan said the security situation in the province was extremely uncertain and continued attacks against a particular community would further push the region into state of a complete chaos and disorder.

Despite loss of so many innocent lives, constant failure to ensure the safety of Hazara community is criminal negligence on part of the present government and law enforcement agencies.

He was of the opinion that the situation demands government to undertake emergency measures to stop violent attacks against a specific sect of people.

Imran Khan made a demand to the government and concerned authorities to take stern action against banned Lashkar-e-Jhangvi (LeJ) which openly claimed responsibility of this barbaric attack.

Policemen stand guard during a shutter-down strike in Quetta on Friday. PHOTO: PPIQUETTA:

Traders shuttered their shops in the city on Friday to protest a deadly bomb attack on a bus carrying Shia pilgrims a day earlier.

Fourteen pilgrims from the Hazara community, including women, were killed in the attack which, police believe, was carried out by a suicide bomber. Lashkar-e-Jhangvi sectarian extremist group claimed responsibility for the carnage.

The Hazara Democratic, Tahfuz-e-Izadari Council, Tehreek Nifaz-i-Fiqa-e-Jaffaria and Balochistan Shia Conference had given the call for Friday’s strike which was supported by trader unions and political parties.

Attendance in government offices, banks and semi-government establishments remained very thin. Heavy contingents of law-enforcement agencies were deployed in parts of the city to maintain order. Law enforcers detained a dozen people for bullying shopkeepers and forcing them to shut their shops in different neighbourhoods of the city.

Members from the Hazara community also staged a protest demonstration at Brewery Road, where they burnt tyres and blocked the road to register their protest against Thursday’s attack. They chanted slogans against the provincial government and demanded the immediate arrest of the culprits.

Meanwhile, funeral prayers for the victims were offered at Alamadar Road and Hazara graveyard on Friday.

HRCP condemns killings

The Human Rights Commission of Pakistan (HRCP) has accused the government of neglect in countering terrorist activities aimed at targeting citizens for their religious affiliations. In a statement issued on Friday, the HRCP regretted the loss of life and injuries caused in Thursday’s attack on Shia pilgrims.

A similar attack occurred in Mastung last year, over which the government failed to take action, the HRCP said in the statement. It regretted that the attack occurred on the bus despite it being escorted by the police.

The HRCP claimed that with more than 60 Shias killed in Balochistan this year, the government had either been ‘unwilling’ or ‘unable’ to prevent the killings. (With additional reporting by Aroosa Shaukat in Lahore)

WE have made this Islamic Republic such a heaven on earth that we struggle to find words, often fight over these, to describe what its proud sons are capable of.

Just two days ago, someone asked on Twitter why our Fourth Estate calls bloody attacks on the Shia-Hazaras in Quetta ‘sectarian violence’. “Isn’t it Shia genocide?” I dived into various dictionaries but couldn’t come up with a definitive answer.

Butchery, slaughter, carnage, mass murder and of course genocide have been variously used to describe such bloodlust as is being evidenced in (not just) the Balochistan capital. Your vocabulary is as good as mine.

But will finding the correct word, using the most appropriate, accurate terminology alter the bloody ground reality or render it any clearer? Not really. Then, aren’t there even more significant questions to be asked?

Such as what drives our propensity to hate so much that even a name arouses the vilest of passions. How vile? Well, vile enough for us to kill. Didn’t you hear the ‘motive’ for the killing of a KESC official in Karachi, was said to be his Shia-sounding name though in fact he wasn’t.

How did we get here? Don’t you wish you knew? All we can see is when a state thinks nothing of using an indoctrinated non-state cast for its ‘strategic objectives’ it is but a small step for some of these villainous actors to start pursuing their own ideological agenda, no matter how toxic.

And what do we do? We prioritise. In Balochistan, our first priority is to tackle those who are ‘threatening the integrity of the state at the behest of their foreign masters’. These ‘misguided’ militants can be dealt with later if at all, even brought back on the rails as they are patriotic.

We are defending the country against external threats. All else must be secondary. One day the citadel of Islam will become that for certain. What’s the worry if for now it resembles no more than a slaughterhouse soaked in the blood of its innocent sons and daughters?

When you see the daily relentless slaughter of the Shia-Hazaras in Quetta (frankly, it’s pointless to keep count when you know it’ll need to be updated every 24 hours if not sooner) and similar hatred at work elsewhere from Chilas to Karachi, what do you do?

Well, many Shia-Hazaras say the electronic media, in particular, prefers to shut its eyes or just look away rather than acknowledge the horror. Perhaps they are right. Religious fanaticism that drives people to mass murder isn’t half as sexy as politicians tearing each other limb from limb on live telly.

Everyone is stepping over each other to please the latest centre of power in the country, the esteemed black-robed judges. The military and its intelligence apparatus continue to sell with, dare I say, consummate ease its national security threat perspective to journalists.

It may itself be under siege but even a government that has failed at almost everything except delivering on a hearty legislative agenda still has enough ideological support or the means to buy a voice or two that counts in its favour.

But who’ll march for the Shia-Hazaras, they ask. They have little hope in a decadent government whose chief executive is either so disinterested or feels so powerless that his detractors now count the number of days he is able to spend in the province he represents each month.

He prefers the handlebars of his Harley Davidson to ride around the federal capital and entertain himself rather than demonstrate the steel required to steer his troubled, torn province to safety as he was elected to do. Sincere apologies if such reports are mere propaganda.

What isn’t propaganda is that (given the size of the community) a disproportionately large number of Shia-Hazaras have been killed in and around Quetta. This happened not as they planned or executed acts of aggression against anyone. Their crime: being easily identifiable as Shia-Hazaras.

You haven’t heard many Hazara voices, have you? Here is one. Saleem Javed is a doctor of medicine and a blogger who tweets @msaleemjaved. In his own words, he so effectively articulates how it was and is for his community.

“Being a Hazara was a matter of pride. We grew up with dreams to take part in Pakistan’s development with devotion and sincerity as our forefathers did. Be it in the field of education, sports, politics or defence. We were glad as everybody thought we were successful in achieving our goals.

“But things have changed greatly since 1999. We feel being subjected to persecution, prejudice and discrimination almost on a daily basis. We feel as if there is always somebody mapping out a plan to attack us?

“You feel as if the state of Pakistan has totally abandoned you. As if the security forces are facilitating your murderers. As if the media is mocking your death. As if the human rights organisations are turning a blind eye on your genocide. And worst of all, as if your fellow countrymen are celebrating your death.

“As a Hazara you are afraid of a policeman, afraid of any armed man. We don’t even trust the Pakistan Army, top judiciary … almost nobody. Because nobody has ever heard your voice over the last 13 years. You are afraid of going to university because somebody is lying in wait to kill you.

“You can’t even escape. You need a passport for that. But you feel you’ll be murdered if you go to the passport office. You can’t go to any office for that matter because you will be identified, chased and finally shot in the head.

“You feel that even your neighbours are annoyed by your screaming and want you to stop shouting.”

Don’t let your fears about your neighbours stop you, my good friend. Or we’ll be left with no hope at all.

The latest and one of the most malicious ones happens to be, albeit surprisingly, by a Baloch writer whose own community has been a target of severe state repression for many decades

Mr Surat Khan Marri’s article published in Daily Times on June 23, 2012, is not only filled with factual distortions but also indicates a jaundiced view of the Hazaras. Every word and every line of the article shows the author’s hatred towards the Hazaras of Balochistan who have been at the receiving end of some of the most gruesome attacks since 1999. Almost 850 members of the community have lost their lives in a series of ambushes by terrorist outfits such as Lashkar-e-Jhangvi (LeJ). The mainstream media either has been silent over the genocide of the Hazaras throughout this era or has even blamed the victims for the crimes of the culprits. The latest and one of the most malicious ones happens to be, albeit surprisingly, by a Baloch writer whose own community has been a target of severe state repression for many decades.

The article caused a huge outrage amongst the Hazaras — an already persecuted community. The author, firstly, confidently claims, “The Hazara community may claim to be descendants of the Great Khan of the Mongols.”

According to a renowned Afghan author and historian, Abdul Hai Habibi, Hazaras are the oldest inhabitants of central Afghanistan, known as Hazarajat; a great deal of historical evidence has proved that they were dwelling in the southern parts of the Hindukush Mountains around 1,500 years before the Mongol invasion of Afghanistan. Somebody aware of Afghan history knows that the very same people killed Genghis Khan’s grandson, Mutugen, during a battle in Bamiyan. Another famous Afghan historian, Syed Askar Mosvi, concludes in his book, The Hazaras of Afghanistan that historical and archeological evidence available in the ancient city of Bamiyan suggests that the Hazaras were living in the central highlands of Afghanistan as early as 2,300 years ago. In addition, a Chinese traveller, Tauchaun, wrote about people similar to the Chinese in Hazarajat called ‘Hozora’ in June 644 AD. Only the blind can ignore the similarities in the facial features of the Hazaras and those of the Buddha statues in Bamiyan.

Mr Marri adds, “In their recent abode, Afghanistan, they are considered and treated as of low caste, compelled to work as sweepers and clean latrines.” The Hazaras’ homeland, Hazarajat, was an independent territory until the late 19th century when the Amir of Afghanistan, Abdul Rahman Khan, invaded it by declaring jihad against the Hazaras after failing to defeat them with his regular army. The Hazaras were subjected to prejudice, suppression and persecution by the Afghan rulers out of enmity and rivalry, but never as “low caste sweepers and latrine cleaners”.

Meanwhile Mr Marri claims, “In Afghanistan, they (Hazaras) are half a million but in Afghan challenges or wars....the Hazara community in Afghanistan has no role.”

Hazaras make up 19 percent of the Afghan population (official figure), which means almost eight million people, while the Hazaras claim to constitute at least 25 percent of the country’s population. More than 60 members of parliament are Hazaras. Karim Khalili, the second vice-president, is also a Hazara. Their candidate stands third in every presidential election.

Mr Marri further adds, “About a century and a half ago, a large number of Hazara boys and girls were kidnapped, brought to Baloch areas and sold as slaves.”

Such a shameful assertion! For the author’s information, the 106th Hazara Pioneers were among the first group of Hazaras who migrated to Quetta and were directly recruited in the British army due to their superb capabilities, extraordinary skills and bravery.

“The Pakistan army started recruiting a large number of Balochistan-based Hazaras, some of whom rose to the rank of general — General Musa being one example,” Mr Marri writes.

General Musa was recruited by the Indian army long before partition and not by the Pakistan army. It was he who, in fact, developed the Pakistan army with devotion and care, and served the people of Pakistan sincerely without any intention to rule the masses, unlike his colleagues.

The columnist claims: “Wherever a Hazara officer was posted, he recruited more people in the services from his community, creating heartburn in the local Baloch and Pashtun. When General Musa, after retirement as commander-in-chief of the Pakistan army became the governor of West Pakistan, he declared the Hazaras as a local tribe of Balochistan through an ordinance. It meant that anybody crossing the Afghan border automatically becomes a local of Balochistan.”

The author may not be able to provide a single instance of such favouritism and substantiate such an allegation. In fact, it is the Hazaras who have been marginalised. A report recently published by the Minority Support Pakistan states: “Today, the public workforce of Balochistan is approximately 95 percent non-Hazara, almost all Baloch and Pashtun. According to statistics compiled from the Balochistan Public Service Commission, Hazara today still score on average two to three hundred points higher on civil service and university entrance exams than do their Baloch and Pashtun counterparts. Yet their total share of civil service positions has fallen from a high of 50 percent in 1971 to less than five percent in 2012.”

Moreover, General Musa Khan became the governor of West Pakistan on September 18, 1966, while the Hazaras (together with Pashtun tribes such as the Durrani, Yousufzai, Ghilzai) were declared as local tribes of Balochistan on May 10, 1962. A sane mind would never accept that an ordinance would say, “anybody crossing the Afghan border automatically becomes a local of Balochistan.”

The writer continues, “Another factor of Iranian patronage to the Hazaras created more anguish to local Baloch-Pashtun bad feelings. Through Iran’s financial help, the Hazaras were dominating business in Quetta city. They also annoyed Baloch nationalist political workers when they started buying lands in Baloch areas on a large scale.”

This paragraph explains why the Hazaras are being targeted almost on a daily basis. False allegations of “Iranian patronage to the Hazaras” and “Iran’s financial help” are among the top excuses of the planners of the Hazara genocide. Narrating such false accusations on behalf of Baloch nationalist political workers comes just a few days after the BNP’s Akhtar Mengal acknowledged and admired the positive role of Hazaras in the development of Balochistan. This is a clear attempt to spew hatred among the native citizens of this unfortunate province by fabricating a claim that, “Hazara settlements have become a no-go area for other communities.”

Mr Marri goes as far as claiming, “...the situation worsened and aggravated when Iranian pilgrims during Hajj attempted to occupy a corner of Bait-ul-Allah Sharif at Mecca. The entire Hazara community is said to have joined the Iranian Shias.”

This one is such a dangerous allegation that if it were published in a ‘civilised’ country, the author would have been sued for putting an entire community in danger.

“Generally, Lashkar-e-Jhangvi (LeJ) accepts responsibility for such acts, as many in the Lashkar and Sipah-e-Sahaba are local, mostly Baloch. As stated, the reaction was the result of the Hazaras’ target killing a number of Sunni ulema and pesh imams. All fingers point to Hazaras for the target killings of the Sunni ulema,” the columnist concludes.

By asserting that LeJ operatives are Baloch, the author has tried to provoke the Hazaras against the Baloch and by blaming the Hazaras for killing Sunni ulema, he has opened a new front against them. The result could be exactly what the murderers of the Hazaras and Baloch want: an escalation of ethnic/sectarian clash in Balochistan.

The writer is a freelance journalist and human rights activist based in Quetta. He blogs at Quetta Perspective and tweets @mSaleemJaved

Chairman of Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) Friday termed the barbaric incident of Quetta is part of the systematic wave of violent attacks against the Hazara community. He strongly condemned attack on a Quetta bound bus carrying Shia pilgrims from Iran, which led to loss of 13 innocent lives. Terming the attack barbaric, Imran Khan said that the incident is part of the systematic wave of violent attacks against the Hazara community. Atleast 60 people belonging to the Hazara community have been brutally killed during the past six months. Imran Khan stated that there could be serious repercussions if the dangerous trend of increasing frequency and intensity of violent attacks against the Hazara Community is not reversed. The security situation of Balochistan is extremely uncertain and continued attacks against a particular community can push the province into a state of complete chaos. Constant failure to ensure security of the Hazara community despite loss of so many innocent lives is criminal negligence on part of the government. The situation demands the government to undertake emergency measures to stop violent attacks against the community, he added. Imran Khan demanded stern action against the banned Lashkar-e-Jhangvi, which has openly claimed responsibility of this barbaric attack. The PTI Chairman expressed complete solidarity with the Hazara community and conveyed deepest condolences to the bereaved families.

A paramilitary soldier stands guard near a damaged bus destroyed in a bomb attack in the outskirts of Quetta June 28, 2012. PHOTO: REUTERS

The Lashkar-e-Jhangvi, whose multiple-homicide leader was released this year from a prison in Lahore has killed another 14 Hazara Shia citizens in a bus carrying 50 passengers on its way from Taftan, a border town between Iran and Pakistan. This is the third time since last year that pilgrims to Iran have been killed, to say nothing of the random extermination of the community that began in the 1990s, when the Hazaras of Quetta started being targeted by terrorists affiliated with the al Qaeda. This has gone on in parallel with attacks on the Shia community in the Kurram Agency, Gilgit-Baltistan and some cities of Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa bordering Fata.

Adding to the shame for Pakistan, a large number of Pakistanis have added themselves to the ‘boat people’ of Southeast Asia, trying to enter Australia illegally. A boat capsize has taken the lives of scores of them, all hailing from the areas that have been subjected to sectarian strife where Shias have been targeted. A bulk of them belonged to Kurram Agency because Pakistani routes were closed to them and they couldn’t go home from Peshawar if they wanted to. The scourge of al Qaeda and its henchmen, funded by private citizens from Arab states, has decided to put to an end to a community that the state of Pakistan cannot protect.

Hazara websites tell the gory tale and appeal to the state to protect the community. Every month, a shocking 60 Hazaras are killed in Quetta, which has the dubious reputation of being home to the infamous Quetta Shura of Mullah Omar. Quetta has a sizeable population of widows and orphans telling the sorry tale of Islamabad’s distraction with enemies it can’t defeat, its military commentators and retired diplomats daily telling the nation how to stand up to the anti-Pakistan triad of America, India and Israel. Over the last half-decade, 50,000 Hazaras have left Balochistan for other countries, some of them dying on the way.

The Baloch in Balochistan are up in arms in revenge for their ‘disappeared’ relatives and are taking it out on innocent non-Baloch inhabitants through their rebel groups, blowing up pipelines and killing people inside Quetta to remind Islamabad that it is off-target when it says India is doing it; and the army is wrongly focused when it goes after terrorists calling them Indian and American agents. The al Qaeda enjoys the direct allegiance of Tehreek-i-Taliban Pakistan, Jandullah and the Lashkar-e-Jhangvi. Indirectly, it enjoys a meeting of the minds with the organisations busy agitating against America in the shape of the Difa-e-Pakistan Council. The nation does not know what is going on because of the ‘linguistic divide’ in the media: the Urdu media has still to recognise basic facts and will not name terrorist organisations, while TV anchors shrink from the truth for fear of being killed.

All these killers will be needed soon in Afghanistan when the next war for ‘strategic depth’ is fought. Because they are the jihadis that will fight for Pakistan, they are allowed the franchise in Pakistan of exterminating their ideological enemies. The Pakistani state doesn’t seem care if Christians are targeted through the blasphemy law and if the Ahmadi community is persecuted against. It is still somewhat upset over what is happening to the Shia community. But the grooves of habit formed by the impunity of persecution of the other minority communities are fast paving the way for the next bloodletting.

The Pakistani state faces defeat if it fights the next war in Afghanistan through its non-state actors. It is a grave blunder to let these non-state actors go about their killing ways as a kind of dishonourable price for defeating another superpower in Afghanistan. This time, these non-state actors are going to face another kind of Afghanistan, better equipped to fight our marauders. Pakistan should brace itself for the flood of Pakhtun-Afghan refugees after 2014, and should remember that every time we try to win victories in Afghanistan, half the Pakhtun nation of that country arrives in Pakistan as refugees. The war to fight is the war inside Pakistan — with the help of the outside world we are being taught to hate.

No choice ... ethnic Hazaras from Afghanistan wait in Cisarua, West Java, for people smugglers to take them to Australia. Photo: Michael Bachelard

ASYLUM seekers have accused people smugglers in Indonesia of taking advantage of the recent fatal sinking of two refugee boats to jack up their prices.

Some of the thousands waiting in Cisarua for a boat to Christmas Island told the Herald yesterday the extra charge, up to double the usual price, was to buy ''stronger boats'' after the drownings.

But they say Australia's political ructions are also pushing up the price as thousands compete to get to Australia before the election of an Abbott government.Advertisement: Story continues below

Hameed Ullah, 21, an ethnic Hazara asylum seeker who has been waiting for about four months, told the Herald he had received a call from his ''agent'' three days ago upping the price.

''He said: 'The sea is crazy … If you want to go with me, now the rate is $US8200.''' Two months ago it cost $US4000 to $US6000, Mr Ullah said.

There is no guarantee the extra price will buy a better boat. Asylum seekers do not know the real names or phone numbers of the people smugglers. After paying the fee, they wait to receive a phone call saying a boat is ready. They can choose to board or not board once they see the vessel.

Mr Ullah said people followed the political news in Australia and it increased demand to get there sooner rather than later.

''They know now the condition; they read [about] the election. Australia is near to change the prime minister,'' he said.

''We think if they are to change we will be here a long time. Julia Gillard is good for refugee people. If they change, maybe it's bad for us because maybe we can't arrive in Australia.''

Mr Ullah was a student in Afghanistan before his father was killed by the Taliban. He took his family's life savings to come to Cisarua, two hours from Jakarta, where he lives with 20 to 30 other asylum seekers. All are waiting with increasing urgency for a boat to a country they believe should welcome them.

Another Hazara man, Imayat Ali, 55, said the danger would not stop them as they were fleeing far worse in Afghanistan and Pakistan. ''We are risking our life to go to Australia, even [though] the current is too high, the boats are not too strong. But still people want to go … better to die in the sea on the way to Australia than with the Taliban in Afghanistan.''

Mr Ali's nephew was saved by Australian rescuers from the ship that sank, with the loss of at least 90 lives last week. In a brief phone call from Christmas Island he told his uncle: ''Don't come with such a person who you don't believe, and bring with you a tyre tube with air in it. The sea is very high.''

He did not know specifically about the government's ''Malaysia solution'', but he did know about Malaysia from family members who are there.

''We cannot go to Malaysia … what a place their jails are! Unhuman treatment … We only want to be in Australia.''

Mr Ali said people were grateful to the people smugglers. ''We're thanking the people who bring us here. They relieve us … We are yearning for the service they render to us.''

One of Pakistan’s leading politicians, former cricket star and chairman of the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) party, Imran Khan, party condemned an attack on a bus that killed fifteen Shia Muslims from Iran on their way to the city of Quetta in Baluchistan.

Enlarge(Photo: Wikipedia)Hazara man

The victims were of the Hazara ethnic group, a people who live in Iran, Afghanistan and Pakistan, and have suffered a wave of killings over the past six months in Pakistan.

Hazara, who are distinguishable by their Mongolian features (they are believed to be the descendants of the soldiers of Genghis Khan), have been shot at, bombed at and stabbed in what appears to be a coordinated campaign of violence against this small ethnic group in Pakistan.

Since 2001, Pakistani media estimates, at least 800 Hazara have been slaughtered in the country.

Khan blamed the government for the worsening security situation in Baluchistan, warning that the province could sink into chaos. Expressing his condolences and solidarity with the Hazara people, Khan demanded that authorities punish Lashkar-e-Jhangvi (LeJ), an outlawed Islamic militant organization that took responsibility for the latest killings of Hazara.

LeJ has even written a letter to the Hazara community, warning them to leave Pakistan by the end of 2012.

The motivations for the mass murder of Hazara in Pakistan are complex and confounding. Some believe it is a case of fanatic Sunni Muslims killing Shias, other think it is simply a matter of ethnic prejudice, but some Hazara leaders say they are being wiped out due to geo-strategic issues engulfing both Pakistan and Afghanistan.

“The Hazaras are being systematically killed because they are anti-Taliban,” said Tahir Khan Hazara, a political activist.

However, Baluchistan is also involved in its own insurgency movement, which the Pakistani government had brutally sought to crush. Some Hazara think that Pakistani security forces are killing Hazara to camouflage their persecution of Baloch nationalists.

Zaman Dehqanzada of the Hazara Democratic Party (HDP) alleges that Pakistani security forces are murdering Hazara to punish them for refusing the fight the Balochs.

“We are not going to destroy our relations with our brothers in Baluchistan,” he said.(The founder of HDP, Hussain Ali Yousufi, was himself murdered by LeJ on in early 2009.)

As Farsi-speaking Shias, some in Pakistan suspect the Hazara of being spies for Iran and perhaps conspiring to engineer a Shia revolution in overwhelmingly Sunni Pakistan.

Hazara suffered immense loss of life in Afghanistan when it was under Taliban control – tens of thousands were massacred. Taliban viewed the Hazara as loyal to the Northern Alliance government which strongly opposed the Taliban.

The chaos in Afghanistan forced tens of thousands of Hazara to flee to neighboring Pakistan and Iran.

Their lives in Pakistan are one of poverty and despair. Accroding to the Joshua Project, the Hazara are “looked down upon and despised by other ethnic groups [in Pakistan]. They are some of the poorest people of Pakistan and suffer an alarming array of health problems; eye diseases, leprosy, and tuberculosis are very common.”

Men belonging to the Hazara community mourn the killing of their relatives at a hospital in Quetta on April 9, 2012, following an attack by gunmen. — File photo by AFP

“At least 60 people belonging to Hazara community living in Quetta have been killed in targeted attacks, including suicide, remote-controlled and timer device bombings and firing,” says a report published in this newspaper, following a brutal attack on Shia pilgrims belonging to the Hazara community.

Thursday’s bomb attack in the Hazarganji area on the outskirts of the provincial capital of Balochistan was not the first such attack of the year. Not even the first of the month. The Hazara community has been targeted, with great impunity, by outlawed militant organisations on at least six occasions in the current year. While all attacks have claimed precious lives, one of worst attacks against the community came last September, when a bus carrying Hazara passengers was stopped by assailants heavily armed with rocket launchers and Kalashnikovs. They identified Hazara men, took them off the bus and slaughtered them one by one within half a kilometre from a security check post. A similar incident was repeated a few days later in Akhtarabad area of Quetta. Some unconfirmed reports say “over 800 Hazaras have been killed in 24 incidents of mass-murder and 131 targeted ambushes since 2001.”

Murderous motivesResponsibility for most of these attacks has been claimed by outlawed group Lashkar-i-Jhangvi, who have gone as far in their hate preach as declaring the community “wajib-ul-qatl” or deserving of death in their edicts handed out in the Balochistan province. Moreover, the community has been warned that its settlements in Hazara Town and on Alamdar Road will be transformed into graveyards as the war against them continues, according to a column published in this newspaper.... Continue Reading....

His work: The Haunted Lotus, 2011–2012 (Gouache, ink, and gold leaf on wasli paper)Ali, who trained in miniature painting, has roots in Bamiyan where the colossal sixth-century Buddha statues were destroyed by the Taliban (2001).

In the style of Indian Mughal miniatures, Ali has since 2007 worked to explore and update the Shahnamah. In his paintings, the classical hero Rustam is a horned demon, with a long beard reminiscent of those worn by Taliban fighters.

In Kassel, Ali is exhibiting four miniature paintings to explore the mythic tales of the Shahnamah by Firdausi in a contemporary context. He is also holding a seminar for children in Bamiyan, which focuses on the lost art of storytelling.

The sectarian war in Balochistan is getting uglier by the day as Sunni militants continue to devise new strategies every day to target members of the Shia community. Despite religious motivations, these attacks frequently lead to attacks on Hazara ethnic community. Thus, one should not mince words in describing this phenomenon as a blatant religious and ethnic cleansing. The tragic killing of another 13 innocent Shia pilgrims on Thursday in Hazar Ganji once again increases the fears of the Shia community and calls into question the government’s commitment to protect the people’s lives....Continue Reading....

Thursday, June 28, 2012

ISLAMABAD: Every month around 50-60 members of the Hazara community are either gunned down or killed in bomb blasts, mostly within the precincts of Quetta city, claim the head of a political party and a legislator.

During the last five years, as many as 50,000 Hazaras have left Balochistan; a majority of them have managed to take ‘shelter’ in other countries, and nearly 300 lost their lives as some of the boats they were on board capsized. Meanwhile, some have fled to Islamabad and Rawalpindi.

Hazara Democratic Party (HDP) President, Abdul Khaliq Hazara, while talking to The News claimed that in a systematic manner, ethnic cleansing of Hazaras was on and has dramatically intensified since 2008 onwards. “We don’t see a light at the end of the tunnel, as on the one hand we are losing our dear ones while on the other, the state and its institutions have failed to fulfil their constitutional obligations and virtually turned their back on us,” he charged.

He said after finding no security and protection from the provincial government and its related departments, the trauma-hit people had been left with the only option to hand themselves over to the Arabian Sea waters.

Asked what role his party and other political parties, particularly in the province, could play to defuse the situation, the HDP chief said things had gone out of the political parties’ hands, as those behind this gory phenomenon enjoyed the full protection of certain forces. “Everybody knows it,” was his terse reply when asked who these forces are.

He said a deliberate attempt was being made to give this gory act a colour of sectarian strife, as occasionally, mosques and seminaries were also targeted in Balochistan’s provincial capital.

An upright PPP legislator, Syed Nasir Ali Shah, who recently declined to vote for Raja Pervaiz Ashraf, saying he could not repeat the sin he had committed in 2008 by casting his vote for Yusuf Raza Gilani, when contacted, billed the seething violence against Hazara community as a result of multi-faceted factors.

One of the factors, he pointed out, was the release of a hardened terrorist, who had been released a few months back, and he was now free to spread venom to trigger sectarian unrest: he referred to a June 19 gathering in which he again asked people to get ready to target Muslims.

“Is there anyone, who can stop this person? Is there any institution noticing what poison he is spreading here and there,” Nasir Shah, who also belongs to Hazara community, wondered.

The outspoken lawmaker from Quetta contended that people had been left with hardly any other option but to feel increasingly insecure and depressed after a prime minister who called himself a representative of 180 million people, carelessly remarked during an interview with CNN recently that no one had stopped people from leaving Pakistan when told that one-third of Pakistanis wanted to leave the country due to bad governance and other problems. Nasir Shah noted this answer by Gilani had stunned the CNN journalist.

He said the rulers had miserably failed to ensure protection to life of people what to talk of safeguarding their rights. He lamented Pakistan not only stood alone today globally but also regionally, as all neighbours, including, Afghanistan, Iran, India and even Russia were not happy with it due to its policies.

The legislator called for a complete review of Pakistan’s interior and foreign policies, with particular reference to Afghanistan.

“It is because of those disastrous policies that today people are being killed in suicide attacks and blasts while the state institutions are hibernating. Killers are on the rampage without any fear of being arrested and proceeded against. We must open our eyes wide before it is too late and I guess, it is already too late,” he maintained.

A senior official of the Balochistan Home Department, when approached on phone, conceded that they were faced with a complex situation, as not only local but external factors were also to be blamed for the wave of killings in Quetta. He also said that local trouble-makers enjoyed patronage that needed to be handled now without any political consideration.

QUETTA: The city wore a deserted look after Hazara Democratic Party (HDP) called to observe a complete shutter-down strike Friday to condemn the target killings and Hazar Gunji bomb blast in Quetta, Geo News reported.

All the business activities in different areas including Alamdar Road, Hazara Town, Toghi Road, Gulistan Road, Liaquat Bazaar, Bacha Khan Chowk and in adjoining areas were suspended while traffic was also thin on the roads.

While announcing to support today’s strike, different politico-religious parties including Pakhtunkhwa Milli Awami Party (PkMAP) strongly condemned the Hazar Gunji blast and demanded the government to provide security to the general public or else step down.

On Thursday, a powerful remote-controlled car-bomb targeting a bus full of pilgrims claimed the lives of 13 people, including a cop, and injured 30 others in the Hazar Gunji area.

Police officials said a passenger bus, escorted by a police van, carrying 40 pilgrims, was on its way from the Pak-Iran border at Taftan to Quetta. When the bus reached the Hazar Gunji area in the outskirts of the provincial capital, it was targeted by a remote-controlled car-bomb.

The blast was so powerful that the bus turned into an unrecognizable wreck of metal and all 40 pilgrims and four policemen - in a patrolling vehicle escorting the passenger bus - were hit.

Reports suggested that unidentified terrorists had parked a car loaded with explosives at Hazar Gunji. As the bus carrying the pilgrims approached the site at around 6:00pm, the explosive device went off with a big bang.